PANJIM: Expressing its concern over the spate of ad-hoc zone changes destroying Goa’s fabric, the Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) has called upon the people to rally together across the State to stop the implementation of the land conversions.
At a meeting held the Se Old Goa Panchayat hall, the GBA stated that over 1.90 lakh square metres has been secretly converted and 58,000 square metres is proposed to be converted under the Investment Promotion and Facilitation Board (IPB).
Dr Solano D’Silva and Swapnesh Sherlekar made presentations of the various data obtained from Government Gazette, decisions of Town and Country Planning (TCP) Board obtained under RTI Act and data sourced from government offices. D’Silva detailed six ways in which the promise of scientific and people-centric land-use planning was being compromised in Goa.
Sherlekar presented the findings of research. His presentation demonstrated the manner in which the government was using recent amendments to the TCP Act such as 16B, 17 (2), 39A, Zoning Plans and ODPs to subvert comprehensive planning in Goa. He presented figures such as aggregate figures of the ad hoc changes, the underlying zones that were lost and the beneficiaries of these zone changes to the public.
GBA convenor Sabina Martins gave a history of GBA-led agitation against the infamous Regional Plan 2011 in the year 2006 and informing those gathered that the meeting was organised to share the findings of the GBA research team about the pace and implications of ad-hoc zones changes without any semblance of scientific rationality and transparency in the State.
Glean Cabral, activist from Old Goa, spoke about the implications of these arbitrary zone changes for Goa at large and Old Goa specifically.
The speakers stated that by using Section 17 (2) of TCP Act, the government converted 16,58,577 sq mts of land from February 2023 to date, in just 11 months. Data showed it included mainly agricultural land and natural cover thereby creating serious implications for Goa’s food security and the well-being of its population.
The government had gone all out this month (March 2024) to convert 8,25,648 sq mts of land. In a span of one week, the government converted 50 per cent of the zone changes. Furthermore, the government removed information pertaining to the original zone in the notification issued in March, the speakers informed.
This is the reason that 34 per cent of the conversions have not disclosed the original zone. This indicates both haste and a complete lack of transparency on the part of the government. Apart from the first two government gazettes, the remaining notifications had deliberately not disclosed the names of the beneficiaries of the zone changes, the GBA said.
